The Hakko 599B-02 is a replacement solder tip cleaning wire sponge. These sponges are hard enough to remove debris and some corrosion from the solder tips while being soft enough not to damage the tip. They help to remove oxides and excess solder to preserve tip life and enable clean, precise soldering.

I’ve kind of had this on my radar for about a year. I always used sponges or wet newspaper, but wondered how these brass “sponges” worked.

I finally took the plunge and picked up one and I was very surprised at how well it worked. The brass is softer than the soldering iron’s tip, but it’s harder than the oxidized crud that builds upon the iron’s tip. Plunging the iron tip into the brass ball a few times cleans it right up and leaves it ready to tin and get back to soldering.

It also doesn’t cool the tip very much.

I put together a short video showing the size of the unit – it’s bigger than I thought it would be from looking at the pictures.

Bought this on a whim when purchasing a Hakko 936 (an outstanding unit). It sounded like a good idea (less tip stress), and it is! I was never particularly happy with using a wet cloth or sponge. This does a better job of completely cleaning the tip, leaving the working surface shiny and ready to go with just a few plunges into the metal pad. One of those great tools you never knew you needed….

Hakko first introduced the brass coil or sponge cleaner as an alternative to the wet sponge, used traditionally for years. Brass sponges are far easier to use, less messy, easy to replace after long use and service, and to Hakko’s credit, this cleaner is copied by many. The biggest advantage of the brass sponge is that it reduces thermal shock to the hot soldering iron tip compared to a sponge soaked in water, and thus, increases tip working life. The next is it doesn’t absorb chemicals in the flux that can erode the tip, which happens to a sponge is not cleaned properly.

The true Hakko cleaner is made of brass wire spirals coated with rosin. To clean your iron you roll the hot tip on the coils to pull off debris. To tin the tip, you put a dab of solder as usual on the tip, then stab the tip into the coils: this pushes the solder evenly throughout the tip and is so simple and effective! To clean debris from the container, I shake the container, and most solder bits fall to the bottom half, hold the brass sponge to the top half with you fingers, and slowly undue the bottom and discard the debris.

The unit is small, no bigger than a typical computer mouse. Replacement brass sponges cost about $5 from Hakko.

There are copies and DIY versions: a brass or bronze wool can be bought at hardware stores as its a material used as a polishing pad; unlike the Hakko sponge or copies, most aren’t coated with rosin. It must be bronze or brass because since they are copper alloy, its softer than iron and won’t scour or scratch iron tips. Do not use steel wool. I haven’t used the non-Hakko types to know if they are as effective; they cost about half as much as an original Hakko sponge.